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Flutter 3

docs.flutter.dev

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Re: Flutter 3

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flutter's performance issues, on the other hand, is a separate story. Can you expand on that? I know react native has performance issues but does Flutter have it too? Why?

React native has less performance issues, since it uses native toolkit. Flutter draws whole ui by itself: welcome to blinking cursor that consumes 5-15% CPU in idle.

I don't think that's accurate. Seems like native apps have the best performance but Flutter comes a close second. React native on the other is much slower:

https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-vs-native-vs-react-native-ex...

Re: Flutter 3

#332

Despite many maturity issues in practice Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. And yes, the web backend isn't ideal, but it will improve over time. I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages. Dart isn't horrible and is getting better,…

> Dart isn't horrible and is getting better, but it is still a somewhat awkward mish mash of Java and JavaScript Sounds like they should have used TypeScript?

TypeScript isn't a language that can compile to machine code. It must be converted and distributed as JavaScript bundle, which is slow compared to Dart.

Re: Flutter 3

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. Most of Qt is available under the LGPL. Some application specific libraries are available under the GPL, but there's no reason you'd need to use them unless you have special use cases that their libraries would make easier to handle. > I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages.…

We just built a desktop app with QML in a CMake-based Qt project, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the experience. Our brief experimentation with Qt Widgets, on the other hand, revealed a shocking level of dysfunction in basic UI-layout implementation, in what is supposed to be a very mature UI toolkit. But it seems that they're basically abandoning Widgets at this point, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

So interesting, even after years of doing QML, layouting with widgets makes for me much simpler to get what I want

Re: Flutter 3

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apart from Qt, but the licensing issue is a hindrance Qt is LGPLv3, which is really a problem only if you plan to develop embedded software. Sure, there are a few GPL v3 modules here and there, but it's mostly very specific stuff (virtual keyboards, Wayland compositors, ...)

How is it not a problem if you want to sell closed-source software? I guess you can dynamically link desktop applications (although I'm not sure how this works in Apple's Mac app store), but you can't do that with mobile apps.

LGPL is not about dynamic linking, and there are plenty of LGPL (and even GPL) apps in the Apple, Android, Mac and Windows app stores. Like, Chromium itself is mostly LGPL and it's never an issue for electron apps, why would it be for Qt ones

Re: Flutter 3

#335
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been developing in Flutter for a few years now, and I really enjoy the ecosystem. It is the only mobile development environment I have every really enjoyed using. When I started, flutter worked on mobile, and web support was in beta. Now, my app works on iOS/Android/MacOs/Web. If you are a small developer with limited resources for cross-platform development, its an amazing environment. As for Dart, it is actu…

Is the Web version of Flutter still using canvas? I tried it a while back and it was just a canvas rendering everything. That makes SEO impossible. It's also useless for accessibility/screen readers. Please correct me if I am wrong.

https://docs.flutter.dev/development/platform-integration/we...

Re: Flutter 3

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, Flutter is probably the worst choice. React Native is the all around best choice for targeting all platforms natively, otherwise use pure web tech (Ionic + Electron) The desktop and web targets for Flutter are laughable in their current state. Completely unusable so I consider Flutter to be a mobile only platform at this time. Another downside is Flutter's emulated UI, it doesn't bridge to native controls…

Every experience I had with React Native was truly horrible. Gigantic, messy JS dependency tree. Constant build breakages after minor version updates. Random flakiness. Unmaintained or buggy native plugins. Questionable support for issues that didn't affect FB. I wouldn't touch it again.

That's the story with Javascript in general, the tooling is just terrible.

This is one of the underappreciated part of flutter, 4 months of upgrade take me 30min of work and the hot reload just works, good luck with that in the JS world.

Re: Flutter 3

#337

Despite many maturity issues in practice Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. And yes, the web backend isn't ideal, but it will improve over time. I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages. Dart isn't horrible and is getting better,…

> Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. I understand that argument but 100% disagree. The web is the cross platform that runs everywhere (as in in a browser or webview). True it has many issues and some forms of it (electron) are not ideal for some use case but I believe it’s a better platform than flutter in almost every way. You say “true” cross platform and could arg…

> The web is the cross platform that runs everywhere (as in in a browser or webview).

I understand that argument but 100% disagree. Development is horrible, it's anything but standard, comes with a lot of baggage, the performance is atrocious. It doesn't even run anywhere, it runs in a browser. A huge, bloated, hungry browser.

You say Electron is not ideal, I say it's the worst thing that had happened to desktop computers ever. It's bad for the planet too. Some argue that without "js on desktop" we wouldn't have these amazing apps. I think it's not worth it to have those apps if they are built using those technologies. They make me miserable every single day. It's the only thing that forces me to upgrade my computer. It's so bad. Things that were possible 20 years ago are suddenly an unachievable goal. Stop it.

Re: Flutter 3

#338

Despite many maturity issues in practice Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. And yes, the web backend isn't ideal, but it will improve over time. I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages. Dart isn't horrible and is getting better,…

> Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. I understand that argument but 100% disagree. The web is the cross platform that runs everywhere (as in in a browser or webview). True it has many issues and some forms of it (electron) are not ideal for some use case but I believe it’s a better platform than flutter in almost every way. You say “true” cross platform and could arg…

Other than what sibling comments said, I have to add that flutter is much more approachable for new developers than web is. Most widgets are built-in, and development workflow is also simpler. This is what I heard from college students.

Re: Flutter 3

#339

Despite many maturity issues in practice Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. And yes, the web backend isn't ideal, but it will improve over time. I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages. Dart isn't horrible and is getting better,…

There's ClojureDart, which means you can now do Dart and Flutter development in Clojure: https://github.com/Tensegritics/ClojureDart

Re: Flutter 3

#340

Despite many maturity issues in practice Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. Apart from Qt , but the licensing issue is a hindrance. And yes, the web backend isn't ideal, but it will improve over time. I just wish Google had built Flutter on a low level core that isn't tied to Dart, so it would be usable from other languages. Dart isn't horrible and is getting better,…

> Flutter is the only realistic option for true cross platform UIs that run everywhere. I understand that argument but 100% disagree. The web is the cross platform that runs everywhere (as in in a browser or webview). True it has many issues and some forms of it (electron) are not ideal for some use case but I believe it’s a better platform than flutter in almost every way. You say “true” cross platform and could arg…

I came here to say this too. Build your app as a website, then just use a simple browser window of an app that loads your site. Then you only develop in one place, and have nothing to compile or build. Hardly ever have to update your "app" builds even. This won't replace every app of course depending on what you're trying to do and if it requires specific hardware features, but I'd say about 99% of apps don't need to be native.
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